The Dwarf Kingdoms (Book 5) (27 page)

“I cannot leave them like this,” thought Elerian to himself. His first impulse was to rush out and slay the Mordi with Acris, but his common sense warned him that he would accomplish nothing that way. There were too many Goblins in the meadow. As Ascilius had warned him, any attempt at a rescue would result in his capture or death.

“Magic must serve where strength of arms is useless,” thought Elerian to himself as he lay in the tall meadow grass. “The distance is still overlong for a spell, but I must try or give up entirely, leaving the poor captives to their awful fate.”

Lifting his right arm, Elerian steadied his hand, aiming carefully before releasing a powerful destruction spell. With his third eye, he saw a golden orb the size of his hand flash toward the bonfire, but he did not see where it landed, for he flattened himself on the ground, trying to press himself as deeply into the turf covered earth as possible. A sharp crack like a lightning strike shattered the air, followed by a concussive boom that beat against his ears and body, deafening him. Overhead, he heard the ugly, high-pitched whine of flaming splinters flying through the air.

Raising his head just a little, Elerian saw that his spell had been wonderfully effective, shattering the burning logs of the bonfire into deadly fragments that had instantly killed the prisoners around it as well as their tormenters. Looking up, Elerian saw that the night sky was now full of fiery embers arcing toward the stars. Hastily covering himself with a shield spell, he watched as they fell back to earth, raining down on the Goblins who had built their cook fires near the bonfire. Many of whom had already been skewered by sharp, burning fragments of wood before being swept of their feet by the force of Elerian’s explosion. Elerian watched with grim pleasure as the Mordi who were still alive howled in pain as they danced about trying to avoid the fiery rain from the sky. The falling coals burned holes in the shaggy hides of the canigrae who had survived the explosion and even reached some of the atriors tethered in the meadow. The pain they suffered drove both creatures to madness so that they ran wild across the meadow biting and slashing at anything in their path. It was a scene of glorious pandemonium, and Elerian would have enjoyed it hugely were it not for the deaths of the prisoners.

“I wish that I could have saved their lives as well as relieving their suffering,” he thought regretfully to himself as he threaded his invisible way through the melee, making his careful way toward the wood at the southern end of the meadow, for that part of the forest was closest to him. Once under cover of the trees, it would be no difficult task to circle back around the meadow to the river which he could easily cross in his otter shape.

Reaching edge of the forest, Elerian slipped silently inside the wood. As he began circling to his right, walking stealthily from the cover of one tree to another, a beech tree thicker then he was tall suddenly rose up before him like a smooth, silver-gray column. Despite his dangerous situation, Elerian was irresistibly drawn to lay his left hand on the smooth bark of the forest giant. At once, he felt the silver band on his left, upper arm warm against his skin, and he wondered again at its purpose. Impulsively opening his third eye, Elerian now saw the tree as an enormous column of greenish light, its outline constantly wavering and shifting about like a live thing. Without any real hope of success, he advanced a little of his own golden shade into the substance of the beech, asking for news of the Goblin army, for surely the tree would know how far south it was, the news reaching it through the roots that formed a vast, invisible mat under his feet, linking all of the trees of the forest together.

Elerian encountered the usual distrust, but this time it was tempered by the tree's hatred of the Goblins, who were enemies of the forest. Unexpectedly, he received an answer to his question. Using the secret language of its kind, the beech told him that a large force of Goblins approached along the forest road. The tree was unable to give him an exact idea of the distance between them and the meadow, but it seemed to Elerian that they were much closer than they should be. The beech fell silent then, unable or unwilling to tell him more. Removing his hand from its smooth bark, Elerian felt his torque become quiescent again.

“I should discover how distant the Goblins are from the meadow before I swim back over the Caldus,” he decided. “If they are close, they will pose an added danger for Ascilius and his Dwarves.”

 Swift and sure in all his movements, Elerian climbed nimbly into the forest canopy, finding plentiful hand and foot holds in the deeply fissured bark of the trees. Behind him, an excited baying suddenly commenced, the sounds moving swiftly in his direction.

“The canigrae have my scent, but it will do them little good now that I have taken to the trees,” he thought confidently to himself. Running lightly over one great branch after another, slipping through the leaves of the canopy like the night wind, he traveled south, paralleling the Dwarf road which lay to his left out of sight in the trees. As he distanced himself from the meadow, a glint of red from the ground below him suddenly caught Elerian’s attention, causing him to freeze in place.

“Surely that is a canigrae,” he thought to himself. Leaning to his left, he was able to gain a clearer view of the leaf-covered ground below and the shaggy, coal black goblin hound that was looking up at him, its eyes glowing like red embers. “He cannot see or smell me,” Elerian reassured himself. “Some slight noise may have caught his attention, rousing his suspicions.”

The sound of voices from the east where the Dwarf road lay drew both the hound and Elerian’s attention. When the canigrae bounded off in that direction, Elerian followed, curious about the owners of the voices that he had heard. Silently he ran down one wide branch after another until he reached the west shoulder of the road. High in the branches of a great oak, Elerian looked down on the road. Below him, a small pack of canigrae stood or sat on the Dwarf highway, their eyes gleaming red with reflected starlight. In their midst stood three, slender Mordi who stood uneasily under the gaze of a mounted Uruc who sat before them on a sleek atrior, a look of distrust on his pale, lean face.

“Why do you travel south away from the battle lines?” he asked suspiciously of the Mordi as if he suspected them of being deserters.

“Our camp was attacked not long ago,” replied one of the Mordi sullenly. “We are searching for the perpetrator of the assault. If you were to leave the road, you would find that the forest is full of Wood Goblins and canigrae engaged in a similar pursuit.”

“Continue your task then,” said the Uruc, losing interest in the Mordi. Turning his upper body, he stared impatiently at the road behind him as if in expectation of seeing someone. A group of lightly armed Mordi suddenly appeared, running with heaving chests as if they had come far and fast. Elerian was dismayed when he saw the bulky shapes of a half dozen large Trolls became visible on the road behind them, all of them heavily laden with chains, ropes, and great axes.”

“The axes I understand, but what do they intend to do with those chains?” wondered Elerian to himself as the Wood Goblins and the Trolls came to a stop before the Uruc.

“Can we not rest a bit Ulric?” panted one of the Mordi. “We are not far from the river.”

“Rest then but do not tarry long,” said the Uruc harshly. “What about you and your people, Orgog?” he asked of one of the Trolls.

“We are not tired,” replied the Troll, his voice a bass rumble. “Lead the way to the Caldus so that we may accomplish the task given to us by Sarius.”

Facing forward again, the Uruc promptly rode on, the canigrae and Wood Goblins in front of him hastily moving to the side of the road to let him and his massive followers by. When he was out of sight, the two groups of Wood Goblins drew closer, and a Goblin from each group commenced to converse with each other in soft voices. Descending as low as he dared, Elerian strained his keen ears to catch what they were saying.

“Things have not gone well,” said the Goblin from the meadow in a gloomy voice. “Zaleuc is dead and the Dwarves have all crossed the river, burning the bridge over the Caldus behind them. The north bank is now fortified and held against us.”

“These are but temporary setbacks,” replied the Mordi from the south in a confident voice. “Orgog and his crew will soon have a temporary bridge constructed upstream from the Dwarf fortifications. When Sarius arrives with our army, he will cross the river in secret and fall on the little people from behind. After they are all slain or captured, the mounted Urucs will soon overtake the Dwarf wagons, slowing or stopping them until the bulk of our forces arrive. Mark my words; there will be a great feast before the sun sets again with enough Dwarf flesh for all roasting over the cook fires.”

“I have heard such promises before,” said the Mordi from the meadow with a sour look on his face, “but I have not seen any of them come true since we began this accursed campaign in the Dwarf lands.”

“This time will be different,” promised the Mordi from the south. Gathering his fellows together, he led them north on the road at a quick trot. The second group of Goblins entered the wood to the west of the road, their canigrae fanning out before them as they resumed their search for Elerian. From his perch high above the road, Elerian waited quietly until he was certain that all of them had gone.

“It is fortunate that I crossed the river tonight,” thought Elerian to himself, “but it will not be enough just to warn Ascilius of the approach of the Goblins, for he will certainly refuse to retreat. Let me travel south instead, hoping that a way to delay the Goblin commander and his forces will present itself. Only then will I have any hope of convincing Ascilius to withdraw his Dwarves from the river.”

Moving silently through the canopy, Elerian continued to travel south through the trees along the west shoulder of the road. Several hours later, as dawn was starting to lighten the eastern horizon, he heard the main army of the Goblins approaching. High in the branches of a great oak that grew near the road, invisible and still, Elerian waited for it to appear. Before long thousands of mutare came into sight on the road to his left, followed by countless Mordi, all of them maintaining a stiff trot, the laggards urged along by the whips of the drivers. The Mordi were followed by a large company of Trolls. Thousands of Urucs riding black atriors on the turf covered shoulders on both sides of the roadbed made up the rearguard. Running under the trees on either side of the road were numerous packs of shaggy black lupins.

“At the rate they are traveling, they will reach the Caldus in a few hours,” thought Elerian to himself. “If this great host crosses the river, there is no question that the Dwarves will be overrun, beginning with Ascilius and his rearguard.” As he wracked his mind for some plan that might delay or stop the Goblins, Elerian suddenly felt the presence of something huge in the sky above him.

TIMELY ASSISTANCE

Looking up through a gap in the branches overhead, Elerian saw the dark, winged shape of a dragon high in the air above him. The early morning sun briefly broke through the gray clouds covering the eastern sky, turning the dragon all green and gold.

“Eboria!” thought Elerian to himself. “She has finally left her bed.”

A desperate plan was suddenly born in Elerian's mind as he watched the dragon circling lazily above him, and he acted on it at once. Hoping that there were no Siogai nearby waiting to steal his weapons again, he concealed his sword and knife at the point where a great branch joined the trunk of the tree. After sending away his ring and becoming visible again, Elerian extended his right hand, casting a shape-changing spell. Watching with his magical third eye, he saw a film of golden light flow from the fingers of his right hand, covering his body from head to toe. As his body flowed into the shape of a gray, black barred falcon, his clothes disappeared, sent by the charm to the place where he kept his ring and spell books. His transformation complete, Elerian leaped strongly into the air, at the same time beating powerful wings which propelled him through the canopy and then high into the overcast sky.

Eboria saw him at once with her eagle's eyes as he rose above the treetops, but she paid little heed to his insignificant form as she soared majestically high above the Goblin army. Several hours before sunrise, her wound from Elerian’s arrow partially healed, she had emerged from Ennodius, leaving her remaining dragonet to guard her treasure. From high in the cold, dark heights she had seen the Goblin army traveling north over the road to Iulius. Filled with greedy thoughts of treasure, she had flown to the front gate of Galenus. Finding the doors burst open, she had entered the city, but to her vast disappointment, she had found it empty of both treasure and inhabitants.

Wise in the ways of Dwarves, she knew that their valuables were most likely hidden in secret vaults where no one but their owners would ever find them, but there was still a chance that the Goblins had taken some plunder with them. Leaving the city, she flew north to investigate, but it quickly became obvious to her that the swiftly moving, lightly laden Goblins carried no treasure with them. Now, her curiosity satisfied and the tug of her golden bed growing more irresistible by the moment, she was preparing to return to her lair.

When Elerian, in his hawk shape, drew closer, however, she flexed her supple, snakelike neck, turning her great head curiously in his direction, for it was unusual for any living thing other than her own offspring to approach her willingly.

“I see the wound that I gave you has begun to heal,” shouted Elerian in a high, piercing voice as he shot past her. “I will have to give you another one,” he taunted.

Eboria's eyes widened and a tremendous roar escaped her, for despite the change in pitch, she recognized Elerian’s voice. Wind whistling through his feathers from the speed of his passage, Elerian streaked past Eboria a second time, even closer than before. When she suddenly sent a great plume of red flame in his direction, he immediately folded his wings and dove toward the forest below, barely escaping the red inferno that roared by over his head.

Seeing that Elerian had escaped her dragon fire, Eboria folded her own wings tightly against her enormous scaled body and plummeted after her small enemy, her immense rage driving everything from her mind except for the desire to kill the creature that had slain her dragonet. In front of the dragon, Elerian plunged faster and faster through the air, the wind from his passage flattening his feathers and whistling past his ears. A quick glance over his right shoulder showed him the great green-scaled shape of Eboria slowly overtaking him.

“So far so good,” thought Elerian to himself as he looked down at the Dwarf road which was becoming larger by the second as he plunged toward it. On it, the Goblins and their allies had ceased their advance, their eyes fixed on Elerian and the monster following him so closely, wondering, no doubt, why a dragon was pursuing a small creature like a falcon.

Cupping his wings to slow his dive, Elerian dropped below the forest canopy, landing in the middle of the Dwarf road out of sight and well ahead of the van of the Goblin army. The moment his claws clicked on the flagstones covering the highway, he cast a shape-changing spell, using all his powers to implement the familiar charm as quickly as possible, all the while keeping his eyes on Eboria whose fearsome figure grew larger and larger as she dropped down on him out of the sky. The moment his body attained its native form, Elerian darted away down the road toward the Goblin army just as Eboria cupped her enormous leathery wings and landed on the road, her long, scimitar claws scoring the flagstones exactly where he had stood only moments before. Trumpeting her rage, the dragon chased after Elerian, covering the ground in long sinuous leaps, her long muscles coiling and flexing like steel cables beneath her sleek, scaled hide.

Running just fast enough to maintain the distance between himself and Eboria, Elerian rounded a curve in the road, entering a long, straight stretch of the highway that brought him within sight of the mutare who made up the front ranks of the enemy column. The changelings stared with horrified eyes as Eboria suddenly appeared behind him. When she roared, giving voice to her all consuming rage, they scattered like a flock of partridges, covering the ground with tremendous bounds as they raced into the forest on both sides of the road, each of them intent on putting as much distance as possible between himself and the approaching monster.

“It is remarkable how the mere sight of a dragon can make these fierce creatures as timid and fleet as deer,” thought Elerian dryly to himself as the road in front of him cleared as if by magic.

The scrape of claws digging into stone and a tremor in the flagstones beneath his feet brought his attention back to Eboria. Glancing behind him over his left shoulder, Elerian saw that the dragon had closed the distance between them to less than a hundred paces. Her great jaws, long enough to engulf him whole, spread apart and a long plume of red flame shot out in his direction. The mage fire covered Elerian like a fiery cloak, but he instantly took control of the flames which touched him, keeping their heat away from his body. The mutare in front of him were not so fortunate. Bursting into flame like shaggy torches, they were straightaway reduced to piles of ash and smoke. Calling on every bit of his speed, Elerian left the mage fire behind, his long, fleet strides distancing him from Eboria once more.

Having failed to slay Elerian with fire, Eboria now attempted to trap him with her front paws, springing on him from behind like a great cat. Fortunately the road continued to clear in front of Elerian, allowing him room to evade her pounces. Darting ahead or to one side, he was always one step ahead of the dragon, her claws scoring the flagstones behind him and her long jaws, armed with teeth the length of daggers, clashing together inches short of his body.

He now came to the end of the mutare, for he had reached the middle of the enemy column. There were Wood Goblins in front of him now, and they cleared the road even more swiftly than the mutare, fleeing into the forest with pale faces and terrified, staring eyes. The company of Trolls who followed them also fled, for not even they were powerful enough to withstand Eboria. After the Trolls came the Uruc cavalry, which made up the last part of the enemy column. Their temperamental atriors screamed and bucked when they saw Eboria bearing down on them, many of them spilling their cursing riders onto the ground. Elerian had the satisfaction of seeing more than one of the Urucs perish, crushed by Eboria’s clawed feet or swept aside by her long spiked tail when they were slow to get out of her way. Once he came to the end of the Goblin cavalry, Elerian found the road in front of him completely deserted. Faced with one dragon, the mighty Goblin army had melted away into the forest on either side of the highway like snow on a sunny hillside.

“Time for me to vanish too,” thought Elerian to himself as he barely evaded yet another swipe of the dragon’s claws. Turning sharply on his right heel, he darted off the road into the trees on his right. By the time Eboria slowed her great bulk, Elerian had already disappeared into the wood. Feeling rather pleased with himself over the success of his plan, he called his invisibility ring to his hand and ran south, keeping close to the road. Before long, he came to the tree where he had cached his sword and knife. Climbing swiftly into the canopy, he retrieved his weapons, stiffening suddenly when he heard a loud, snuffling sound to the north. With powers of scent equal to those of any hound, Eboria had found his trail by the road and was tracking him through the forest.

“Little good will it do her,” thought Elerian smugly to himself as he ran through the upper pathways of the forest, describing an arc that took him north around the dragon. “She cannot track me through the canopy.”

His complacency vanished a short time later when the crown of the tree he was traveling through suddenly collapsed with a tremendous snapping and cracking of great limbs. Barely evading the great-scaled paw that reached for him through the wreckage of limbs and branches around him, Elerian fled down the trunk of the tree and ran north on the ground, heart pounding in his chest. Behind him, he heard the crashing of limbs as Eboria followed him to the ground.

“She must have seen my shade with her third eye,” Elerian thought to himself as he ran swiftly through the trees. “I should have realized that the overcast sky would make it stand out more brightly,” he berated himself.

Denied the canopy where he would be visible, and the ground where he would leave a scent trail, Elerian desperately sought out water, ears constantly listening for the sound of Eboria behind him. When he came to a small, clear stream that flowed north, he briefly entered the canopy to break his scent trail before returning once more to the watercourse, dropping down into it from a low hanging branch. His light footsteps causing barely a ripple in the shallow water, he began to run north again. Behind him, he heard Eboria’s frustrated roar as she came to the end of his scent trail for the second time.

“She will likely roam the forest or fly the skies for the better part of the day searching for me,” thought Elerian to himself, feeling that fortune still favored him. “With Eboria prowling about, the Goblins will be afraid to gather in large groups until either she leaves or the sun sets. If I can convince Ascilius to hold to his original plan, we can be across the Catalus with his whole force before the Goblins are able to take up their pursuit again.”

Filled with hope that things would turn out well, Elerian continued following the stream north, keeping a wary eye out for both Eboria and the scattered Goblin army. He soon found out that the watercourse he was following ran parallel to the Dwarf road, flowing at no great distance from its western shoulder. This suited him exactly, for he was much less likely to encounter the Goblins or their allies near the road where they would be more visible to Eboria. Overhead, the clouds continued to break apart, pushed away from each other by a brisk wind blowing out of the northwest. Elerian welcomed the return of the sun, which would hinder the Goblins, but the breeze now blowing in his face caused him some concern lest Eboria or one of the canigrae that had fled into the forest catch his scent.

“Only a little farther now and I will be across the river,” he encouraged himself. “Even Ascilius will have to admit that I have done well today, routing the whole of the Goblin army by an exceedingly clever bit of subterfuge if I do say so myself.”

At that moment, a chorus of strange, high-pitched growls suddenly caused Elerian to stop and look over his left shoulder. Racing toward him through the trees were three sleek black creatures, eyes burning like red embers and long tongues lolling out between sharp white fangs. It took Elerian a moment to recognize them as atriors, for they were running freely without riders or saddles. Spare mounts that had burst their tethers in a panicked effort to escape from Eboria, they wore only black leather halters on their long, narrow heads. By chance they had fled north, keeping close to the road until the wind had brought them Elerian’s scent. Forgetting the panic instilled in them by the dragon, the three of them had immediately taken up the hunt. They could not see Elerian because of his ring, but they knew exactly where he stood, for their powers of scent were as keen as those of a canigrae.

As the three atriors bounded sinuously toward him, Elerian knew that they would have no trouble killing him, visible or not. Abandoning the stream, he leapt out onto dry ground where he could run faster. Calling on every bit of speed that he possessed, he raced through the forest, darting around trees, leaping lightly over fallen branches and roots, his long, light strides giving him the appearance of floating over the floor of the wood. He soon found, however, that he could neither shake his pursuers nor draw far enough away from them to climb a tree, for they were fresh and well rested and he had already been tired when the chase began. Traveling in tremendous leaps, their long, sinewy bodies stretched out close to the ground, the atriors stayed right on his heels, close enough that Elerian could hear their harsh panting behind him. At times it seemed to him that he could almost feel their hot breath on the back of his neck. As his breath began to burn in his lungs and an unfamiliar heaviness entered his legs, Elerian felt a sense of hopelessness clutch at him, for it was only a matter of time now before he slowed or stumbled from weariness.

“I will have to make a stand on the ground,” he thought grimly to himself. “I will not have them pull me down without a struggle, like a defenseless rabbit.”